Nothing starts an episode off like almost getting hit by a car and then having the idiot that almost hit you cuss you out like it was your fault. Dawn describes the one bit of vehicular idiocy that makes her crazy, and it leads into an impromptu history of how California maybe didn’t invent road rage, but they damn sure perfected it. Bobby asks Dawn for advice on his fear of losing his mental faculties, a fear exacerbated by the fact he’s been slipping mentally more and more frequently. Also, a discussion on how bleeding-hearts like Dawn and Bobby can thoroughly enjoy the grimiest of right-wing cinema, and not in an ironic fashion either. All that, and a pug in a dress interrupts the show!
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I couldn’t keep listening because I was too bothered by what you guys kept saying about “Falling Down.” That movie is NOT a right-wing wet dream like “Dirty Harry” or “Red Dawn.” The whole movie is a deconstruction of Angry White Man Syndrome, and how such dangerous, can’t-let-go-of-the-past attitudes will only bring harm to society. When Dirty Harry says, “Go ahead, make my day,” the movie wants you to cheer for him even though what he’s doing is deplorable (unless you’re still living in the hyper-conservative 1980s). “Falling Down,” on the other hand, does not want you to cheer when Douglas’ character shoots a minority gang member point blank while he’s helplessly pinned underneath the wreck of a car. Yes, we can relate to him and understand a lot of his frustrations, but we also realize that he is a sick person, and the exploratory embodiment of what would happen if one of the many uber-alienated, fed-up right-wingers in our society *actually* snapped and started acting out based on their true feelings — a dark journey that follows a wildly destructive path all the way to its tragically preset conclusion.
The movie takes place in 1993, yet Douglas’ character is still hung up on his no-longer-existant job designing missiles to fight the Commies. He is afraid and enraged at being “not economically viable” in a world that has changed all around him, making him uncomfortable and outcast. He just wants things to go back to the way they were… Except things were actually worse back then; they were just better for HIM, a thirty-something white man in a conservative society.
During the confrontation at the very end of the film, Michael Douglas’ character makes a painful realization: “Wait. So I’M the bad guy!?”
Um, yeah. Yeah you are.